jlparent: The Passage reminded me greatly of "Under the Dome", with its intense look at how people cope in a 'new' world. Obviously it's also is hugely reminiscent of "The Stand" as already recommended.

RidgewayGirl: This classic dystopian novel explores the world after an unspecified apocalypse. Like The Passage, Earth Abides involves both the scavenging of the remains of civilization rather than production and a journey to see how others have coped. No vampires, though.… (more)

This started off fairly strong but suffered from the Deathly Hallows Syndrome. The dreaded never-ending-middle-of-the-book issue. In DH I swear I thought they would never stop camping. Just camping, camping and more camping. In The Passage I felt like we'd never leave the damn Colony. I think some of the events in the Colony were superfluous and unnecessary. I was still going to give this book 4 stars but then I got to the end of it and so much for that. The ambiguity trick doesn't always work. Sometimes your readers WANT a clear ending. I mean we went through all that work to get through the damn book in the first place so we're at least owed that much. It's like In the Woods by Tana French. We're robbed of answers. This story was also hailed as unique by many but it didn't seem like a new twist on anything to me. That said, I did still enjoy it. It was not a bad story, but certainly over-hyped. 3.5 stars.**Just found out this is possibly the first in a trilogy. I suppose I could rescind my "answers" comment. ( )

This book has been lying on one of my bookshelves for years, never wanting to commit to reading it. I'm kicking myself for waiting so long. This book is vast, and sends you on many journeys. It is going in so many directions, but it is still cohesive. I can't wait to start reading the next one and to continue this journey. ( )

The passage is a sweeping epic, spanning nearly 100 years, telling the story of a viral outbreak and the world it shapes. The book is reminiscent of Steven King's "The Stand" or Robert McCammon's "Swan Song". Readers who enjoyed either of these books would fall right into the world provided in "The Passage."

The story revolves around a little girl named Amy, who is dragged into the orbit of a secret government project, bent on harnessing a virus discovered in the uncharted reaches of South America. This virus doesn't kill the host, but it does make them preternaturally strong, sensitive to sunlight, and gives them an overwhelming thirst for blood . . . .

Naturally, as with all things governmental in literature, the situation heads south, and the virus breaks loose. Justin Cronin takes us from the time of the outbreak to nearly 100 years after the fact (with hints that the later books in the trilogy will take us even further down the timeline). While it would be easy for such a broad book to either lose itself in this vast expanse of time, or else become bogged down under the weight of such a plot, Cronin keeps the book moving at a thriller pace, and his vivid characterizations, of both heroes and villains, make it easy for the reader to stay involved. ( )

Cronin leaps back and forth in time, sprinkling his narrative with diaries, ­e-mail messages, maps, newspaper articles and legal documents. Sustaining such a long book is a tough endeavor, and every so often his prose slackens into inert phrases (“his mind would be tumbling like a dryer”). For the most part, though, he artfully unspools his plot’s complexities, and seemingly superfluous details come to connect in remarkable ways.

When all's said and done, The Passage is a wonderful idea for a book that – like too many American TV series – knows how good it is and therefore outstays its welcome. There are enough human themes (hope, love, survival, friendship, the power of dreams) to raise it well above the average horror, but its internal battle between the literary and the schlock will, I

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'dthe rich proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometimes lofty towers I see down-raz'd,And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gainAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,And the firm soil win of the watery main,Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;When I have seen such interchange of state,Or state itself confounded to decay;Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminateThat Time will come and take my love away.

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 64

Dedication

For my children, No bad dreams.

First words

Before she became the Girl from Nowhere- the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years- she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy.

Wikipedia in English (2)

It's called Project NOAH: a secret government experiment designed to weaponize the human body. But this experiment goes horribly awry when twelve test subjects escape, spreading a virus that turns human beings into something else-something hungrier, deadlier, and seemingly undestructible. The thirteenth test subject, a six-year-old girl named Amy, is rescued by an FBI agent. Together they flee to the mountains of Oregon, cut off from civilization as the disastrous repercussions of Project NOAH are unleashed upon the world. The Passage creates an all-too-believable world dominated by fear and the need to survive, and introduces the strange and silent girl who may hold in her hands the fate of the human race.

Haiku summary

▾Book descriptions

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▾Library descriptions

A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment that only six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte can stop.